After finishing up yesterday's entry, I closed the laptop with a flourish, satisfied that it was the last time I would have to discuss anything related to the Great Stampedeing Stomach Illness that had consumed us all for nearly a week. I could, perhaps, finally get around to writing the VERY IMPORTANT entry about my hair that I've been putting off day after day.

But first, I had some equally important mental-health-related things to take care of. So I stood up and got dressed and put on some makeup and grabbed my purse and Kindle and got the hell out of Gastroenteritis Dodge.

I drove to a sushi restaurant -- the one that has the tuna dish I like but nothing the kids are willing to eat so we never go there, especially since it's three doors down from a place that serves peanut butter and jelly and Noah KNOWS IT, DON'T YOU DENY HIM THE CHANCE TO ORDER THE SAME DAMN SANDWICH HE EATS EVERY DAY OF HIS LIFE, EXCEPT THAT IT COSTS $4.95 AND COMES WITH A SIDE OF FRUIT HE WILL NOT EAT.

And then...I just...ate the tuna dish I liked. And some soup. I took as long as I wanted. I ordered a glass of wine and surveyed the embarassing backlog of books on my Kindle that I've never gotten around to starting, and then got so engrossed in one that I ordered a second glass of wine just to prolong the experience.

(That may have been a mistake, as the second glass simply made me extra goopy and emotional and then I started to cry over my book in public like an idiot.)

(And since I know my blog is your one-stop-source for Hot Emerging Literary Trends, lemme tell you: I have a really good feeling about this whole Hunger Games trilogy. I think it might, you know, turn out to be something of a very popular thing! Get in now on the ground floor! Party like it's 2008!)

I decided to skip the planned pedicure because I'd lingered so long at lunch, but I did wander around a CVS for awhile. I bought some hair spray.

Oh, I need to do that again. Even if it's just a cup of overpriced coffee that I could make better myself at home. Even if it's just the pedicure and hitting the drive thru. Even if it's not spending a single dollar but just allowing myself to sit on a bench and read somewhere for as long as I'd like.

I came home awash in all manner of lame cliched adjectives: I was refreshed, renewed, recharged.

I paid the babysitter (how I love her!), checked in on a napping Ezra and Ike (my precious cherubs! angels straight from heaven!), then met Noah at the bus stop. He greeted me with a huge hug, like always, and we chatted about his day on the walk back.

I was suddenly aware of how glorious the weather was. And since I had already made the mental break from feeling any compulsion to "check in" on the Internet and email hours earlier, I suggested Noah ride his bikes with a neighbor while I sat on the stoop with my Kindle (seriously, they should like, make a movie of this book! I bet it would be v. exciting!). Ike woke up and I brought him outside too.

I chatted with another neighbor and filled her in on some of the less-graphic details of our week of illness, that the boys were all officially on the mend, and now Jason just needs to recover from his night of misery but after that we're out of the woods. Into the sunshine! The rain is gone! The clouds have lifted and I swear this isn't the wine talking I AM JUST BUZZED ON TWO HOURS OF FREEDOM.

And then we all came back inside and I discovered that Ezra had barfed all over his bed again oh my God in heaven have mercy the end.

I have three boys (7, 4 and 2) and last year was our year of the barfs. We did not go one month between December and May without at least one of my boys puking.... I feel your pain. Make sure that, if you haven't already, your boys get extra doses of probiotics. Once a GI bug has wiped out all the good stuff in their gut, it takes a long time to regrow it and in that time, they are far more suseptable to other bugs.

We often underestimate the need for those little breaks when you can actually think two entire thoughts in a row without interruption or the need to minister to anyone's needs but your own. Worth their weight in gold, they are.

Oh sweet Lord, I am so sorry! I have a true phobia of barf so I can only imagine the horror you are living in. When my kids get the stomach flu it is the worse thing ever to me so I really feel for you.

Also, I just want to tell you I love this blog. It is one of my absolute favorites to read...so keep at it (after you clean up the barf anyway!)

I had to get an antacid/Zantac perscription for one of my guys after the last hork-fest. He had it so bad it was just having major acidproduction, and the barf valve was on overdrive, and everytime he laid down, barf. After the bland diet and small meals didn't help, the perscription worked magic.

Oh poor Ezra. And dammit. FIND THE LYSOl, WHERE ARE THE CLOROX WIPES, LET'S US BLEACH THIS BITCH DOWN, NOBODY TOUCH OR BREATHE ON NOBODY ELSE.

I know that 2 hours well. I usually feel very guilty when I return knowing that I walked the aisles of Target alone, knowing that I tried on lots and lots of shoes in DSW just because there was no one there behind me haphazardly pulling out boxes and then running, screaming shrilly about mah shoes! mah shoes! Good for you for getting out and yes, you do need to do it more often. I like wine.

So sorry your day involved more puke! That's the worse. I'm a pediatric nurse and have to answer lots of puke questions on our nurse help line. My recommendation would be to try to hold off on any dairy or citrus for Ezra for another couple of days. After you've had a stomach bug, dairy is the last thing that your tummy is able to tolerate. The incident was probably related to him returning to a normal diet too soon, and not because he's still sick. (And if I sounded really full of myself or like a jerk in that previous paragraph, I'm really sorry!)

That brief time to yourself is such an amazing feeling. The first time I went out for drinks with friends sans baby after being a stay at home for a few months I realized about a block from my destination that the bounce in my step had turned into a half-skip/half-jog. By the time I reached the bar I was down-right giddy. The total transformation from exhausted parent to giddy school boy took 6 blocks.

Re: paying for coffee just to get out. I've realized that if you buy bags of Starbucks coffee for your house, you can turn in the empty bag for a free tall coffee at Starbucks.

It's kind of like a free built-in me-time date if you space out using them until you actually finish the grounds at home.

I just started the Hunger Games, too. My excuse? Now I don't have to wait for the author to write the next book in the series. ;) And my husband goes out of town tomorrow which means a glass (bottle?) of wine and my Kindle after the kids go to bed.

Hoping the Ezra puke was a final hurrah and not starting all.over.again.

Oh NO. Maybe this will give you some hope: When my family had the horrible awful stomach bug right before Christmas, I thought they were all better. Then a couple of days later the baby barfed all over the place again. I almost ate a whole bottle of Ambien right then and there.

But then she was totally fine after that. It was like... an aftershock of the illness or something. I really hope that's what's going on with Ezra. I'm glad you had a few good hours, at least.

You didn't ask but since I have had this exact experience I have to echo the nurse above, my little one kept randomly puking after a stomach illness until we stopped all milk and products with milk in them. After a good couple of days with no milk, we slowly slowly reintroduced and no more problems.

Soooo my 2yo coughed so hard today that she horked all over her car seat. I heard it start, got to the side of the road, but only caught some of it in the sand bucket. And as my 2yo stood nearly naked on the side of the (Californian, not so bad) road, I was wiping everything down with baby wipes thinking to myself:
Look at me, I'm pulling an Amalah.
(i'm sorry)

So I was trying to figure out where we got it from because it certainly wasn't anyone I know in person but we just got over this too. On Sunday Pippa (my 2 year old) got it. On Monday Kaylee got it. On Tuesday I fell. I also had a brief moment of panic on Tuesday thinking my husband had it too but he just stepped on cat vomit on his way to the bathroom and the resulting moan made my own gross-infused brain think the had obviously just started throwing up also. But then yesterday he was all sick all the time.

I was thrown up on more in that 96 hour stretch than in the whole rest of my life. And we won't even begin to talk about the poop. Because oh, the poop. It was (and I have been watching too much old How I Met your Mother because I am severely tempted to write legendary here but honestly? This would be a super gross legend) vomitastic.

Awwww, I'm glad you got some time out from dealing with other people's bodily fluids. It sounds exactly like what my family is passing around (it hit while we were in Disney World, ugh) and I have NEVER seen a boomerang sickness like this that makes a kid barf, backs off for a couple days, and then comes back to make them barf all over again. SO not fair.

Also, because everyone loves assvice, if there's a chance that Ezra's latest puke wasn't viral but was food related, maybe try withholding all things dairy for a few days? I recently learned from my (pediatrician) husband that when you have a stomach bug, you puke/poop out all your dairy digesting enzymes, making you lactose intolerant for like a week. So maybe it was that? Then at least you might be able to make all the puking stop. Or tell Jason what not to feed him as you run away from home.

Since you mentioned your fabulous babysitter, I thought I would let you know about my new book, The Great Babysitter Hiring Guide - available to download for free today for the Kindle:
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Thanks,

Jon Singer

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The Hunger Games? Fucking awesome!! At first I thought, Why am I reading teen sci-fi? And then I thought, It's probably a bad idea to read and drive at the same time, but I cannot put down the Hunger Games!